Sling Blade

Karl Childers, a simple man hospitalized since his childhood murder of his mother and her lover, is released to start a new life in a sm

• Director:Billy Bob Thornton
• Genre:Drama
• Runtime:135 minutes

Cast

Billy Bob Thornton : Karl Childers
Dwight Yoakam : Doyle Hargraves
J.T. Walsh : Charles Bushman
John Ritter : Vaughan Cunningham
Lucas Black : Frank Wheatley

Karl Childers (Thornton) is a mentally disabled man from Arkansas who has been in the custody of the state mental hospital since the age of 12 for having killed his mother and her lover. Although thoroughly “institutionalized”, Karl is deemed fit to be released into the outside world. Prior to his release, he is interviewed by a local college newspaper reporter, to whom he recounts the brutal murder of his mother and her boyfriend with a kaiser blade. (During which scene he notes to the reporter that, “Some folks call it a sling blade; I call it a kaiser blade,” the line from which the film derives its namesake.) Karl continues, saying that he killed the man because he thought he was raping his mother. When he discovered that his mother was a willing participant in the affair, he killed her too.

Having developed a knack for small-engine repair during his childhood and incarceration, Karl lands a job at a small-engine repair shop in the small town where he was born and raised. Around this time, he befriends young Frank Wheatley (Lucas Black). Karl shares with Frank some of the details of his past, including the killings. Frank reveals that his father was killed – hit by a train – leaving him and his mother on their own (he later admits that he lied, and that his father committed suicide).

Frank introduces Karl to his mother Linda (Natalie Canerday), as well as her homosexual friend Vaughan (John Ritter), the manager of the dollar store where she is employed. Despite Vaughan’s concerns about Karl’s history in the mental hospital, Linda allows Childers to move into her garage, which angers Linda’s abusive boyfriend Doyle (Dwight Yoakam). Eventually, Karl bonds with both Linda and Vaughan. In an early scene, Vaughan tells Karl that a gay man and a mentally challenged man face similar obstacles of intolerance and ridicule in small-town America.

Karl quickly becomes a father figure to Frank, who misses his father and despises Doyle. For Karl, Frank becomes much like a younger brother. Karl eventually reveals that he is haunted by the task given him by his parents when he was a child of six or eight years: To dispose of his premature, unwanted, newborn brother. In a subsequent scene, he visits his father (Robert Duvall) and tells him that killing the baby was wrong. Karl further reveals to his father that he used to think about killing him, but eventually decided he wasn’t worth the effort. Read more

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